


An Unexpected Guest

by Nabielka



Series: Immunity and Frustration [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Knights of Walpurgis, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: The pleasant evening of the Knights of Walpurgis is interrupted by the appearance of a Muggle claiming business with their leader.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Tom Riddle
Series: Immunity and Frustration [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740058
Comments: 25
Kudos: 398





	An Unexpected Guest

**Author's Note:**

> This story assumes at least one previous meeting between Edmund and Tom and is conceived of as taking place in the same verse as 'Two Men In A Bar', but can be read independently.

The wine flowed faster and the conversation more easily once their lord had retired, though Nott would not have voiced that thought for seven new associates. Riddle had been tense of late, quick to anger and to punishment. The fervour in his eyes never dimmed, but it lent him an unearthly glamour, as though the fine bones in his face had been honed into knives to pierce the heart. Looking at him for too long gave rise to a feeling akin to pain, especially when he noticed. 

He drained his wine, had a house-elf refill it, and was just about to drink more when Avery, his nose pressed almost against the window, exclaimed, “There’s someone out there!” The surprise jostled him; the wine spilled onto his sleeve. 

“Nobody else was invited tonight,” Lestrange said in a pointed tone, not even bothering to turn his head. His hand hovered over his rook, then moved at last to a pawn. Behind him, Grandmother Adeodata seemed displeased at the ill use of her own board, though perhaps it was the failure of the magic she had imbrued it with that bothered her most. 

“I’m telling you, I can see a figure!” Avery pushed the window open, made a sharp movement with his wand, and peered out. He grew still.

“I thought that Grindelward’s people had stopped trying to disperse us. After all – ”

Malfoy let out a groan, leaned forward to take Lestrange’s rook. “Mulciber, if you start that debate again, I swear – ”

“It’s a _muggle_ ,” Avery breathed out, and all fell silent.

It was not possible. The very stones of the house had been drenched with muggle-repelling charms, renewed by generation upon generation of his House. Besides, several wards had been cast prior to their meeting, some of them being spells selected especially by their lord himself. Few uninvited wizards could have broken them, much less in such a way that they gave no warning. 

He reached out to examine the fabric of the wards. One unexpected guest was bad enough, but if they were attacked, if some followers of Dumbledore had at last grown too fervid to be restrained by him… 

They were untouched. The last magical residue upon them was his own, sealing the enchantments. Beneath that, Riddle’s spells and Mulciber’s contributions remained intact. For all the magic was concerned, nobody had entered whom the protections had not been set to allow. 

“You’re mistaken,” said Malfoy, leaning back in his chair, his voice calm as the lull of an Imperius command, trained for the Ministry. 

“No,” said Avery, pulling himself up and taking out his wand. “You ought to be glad; we’re overdue some entertainment.” 

It was true that Riddle had grown more cautious in recent weeks. Avery’s most recent attack proposal had not even received an analysed refusal, but so vicious a look that not even the impervious Avery had chosen to proceed further. 

“Are you criticising the Dark Lord?” 

Mulciber’s words fell like a stone, and Avery stammered, “No – I – of course not! I –”

Nott took pity on him. “While our plans are more far-reaching than mere attacks on muggles, what could be wrong with taking advantage of the opportunity if one trips to fall by our feet?” 

Despite this, it was not excitement he felt, but unease. He had confidence, not so much in his own abilities, though these were acknowledged as considerable among his peers, but in the combined strength of generations. To find them violated by a muggle… He did not voice the thought.

“A wizard may defend himself against anyone under such circumstances,” agreed Lestrange. 

Mulciber scowled. “Let’s go then,” he said, and stalked out of the room, throwing the door wide open.

“So melodramatic,” drawled Malfoy, the hypocrite. 

Nevertheless they followed, all except Dolohov, already half-asleep on one of the couches, and Riddle, who remained in the most opulent guest room upstairs. 

“See?” said Avery as they passed through the corridor. “Even the portraits realise.” Indeed, they were mostly empty, excluding a great-uncle who was as deaf in art as he had been in life, and who played cards against himself late into the night. 

“Quiet,” snapped Lestrange, as they made their way down the stairs. “Don’t let it hear us.”

“Scared, Les –?” hissed Rosier, interrupted by Nott, who was not prepared to submit in his own house to anyone other than Riddle.

The discussion was cut short, however, for they soon reached the foot and were stepping out onto the terrace that formed the primary entrance from the grounds. Scarcely had their eyes made the effort to adjust to the diminished light when Avery stopped so abruptly that Malfoy nearly ran into him. He took a quick step up and drew himself up like a peacock, trying to look as though it had been his intent to stop there all along. 

“What are you doing?” said Lestrange softly, his mouth barely closing before a figure stepped from the shadows. 

It was a man, reasonably tall, with dark hair that curled a little at the ends. He looked slightly damp. 

“Good evening,” he said, in a smooth clear voice. 

“Good evening,” echoed Malfoy, whose father prized surface politeness. 

The man spared their drawn wands a brief glance. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” he said, and turning to Malfoy, added, “Edmund Pevensie. I’m here to see Riddle.”

They exchanged glances. 

“You mean the Dark Lord Voldemort,” said Rosier cautiously, his eyes flicking up as though he himself might hear. Then again, thought Nott with a shiver, these days it was not easy to say where Riddle’s abilities ended. 

“As you like,” said Pevensie. There was a slight curl to his mouth as he added, “I’m no longer one for using titles. He’ll see me, if you tell him my name.” 

“You shouldn’t even be here!” said Mulciber. “I cast tonight’s spells myself, to keep out the uninvited.”

Pevensie stepped closer, which put him in greater reach of the light coming from the house. Nott pressed his hand down against the wall to hold himself in place, insisting to himself that it was his house and so he would not be cowed. But he was unnerved. 

“I wouldn’t be advertising your incompetence quite so loudly if I were you,” Pevensie said, and smiled. There was no humour in it that Nott could detect; it was a contortion of his facial muscles and that was all. He had seen a similar look before, he realised with a chill, thinking of himself begging and flushed with the humiliation of it, and Riddle with a smile just like that. 

He saw Rosier's mouth quirk. Mulciber had gone red, his fingers clenched tight around his wand. 

“If one of you would get him?” said Pevensie sharply. 

Several pairs of eyes flickered to Nott. As host, certain rights fell to him. He weighed Riddle’s potential pleasure against the thought of leaving Pevensie unwatched in his house, and found it wanting. Besides, it was by no means certain that whoever brought the news would not instead be faced with Riddle’s displeasure, and as he motioned with his hand to Malfoy, the brief purse of Malfoy’s lips told him that he was of that view. Still he turned and walked back the way they had come, his robes swishing behind him. 

Avery’s concern was quite another. “Interesting choice of attire,” he was saying, “Dangerous for an unexpected guest: we took you for a muggle.” 

“Is that so dangerous?” said Pevensie. He seemed unoffended. Nott contemplated Malfoy’s likely response to being mistaken for a muggle, as the most inclined to dramatics of them all. Then he contemplated Riddle’s, and put the idea away. 

“We don’t like muggles much,” said Lestrange with a thin smile. 

The full moon had been but two nights before; its light was still strong. Nott remembered himself and invited Pevensie inside. 

They followed much the same path in Dolohov’s direction, so as not to make it harder for Malfoy, and in turn Riddle, to find them again. The portraits were back now, if rather crowded than usual. Past generations of Notts displayed quiet displeasure at Pevensie’s muggle appearance, but he did not seem to notice. 

He stopped instead at a painting that had never been occupied, being a rather unfashionable acquisition of Nott’s late Aunt, depicting some battling centaurs whose tale Binns had not been successful in imparting to him. Pevensie fixed this with an intent look. 

After a moment, he said, “They seem ill prepared for battle.” 

“They’re centaurs,” said Lestrange. 

“They’re centaurs in need of cuirasses,” said Pevensie. “It’s clearly a human depiction: look how the horse back is left unprotected.” 

Perhaps this sort of knowledge was what made him of use to Riddle. Back at Hogwarts, the death of that girl had unnerved him, though she was a Mudblood, for what it meant for the school. But none of their group could claim a particular interest or knowledge of magical creatures, and that oaf Hagrid was hardly likely now to prove of use to them. 

“You’re an expert on centaurs, then?” he asked. He himself had steered clear of the Forest at school, and found centaurs themselves rather grotesque when not so stylised. 

Pevensie shot him a side-look with something of a startled nature to it, as though for a moment he had found himself more drawn in than intended. He said, “I knew one well, once. Good warrior, excellent strategic mind.”

Huh, thought Nott. Riddle’s approach was not always conventional; perhaps he was forming a plan to make use of the Forest centaurs against Dumbledore. He opened his mouth to ask about it: Pevensie might at least be more forthcoming than Riddle, who had a tendency to finalise his plans and only then to share them. 

Rosier was clearly thinking along the same lines. “Is that why you’re here?”

Pevensie hesitated. “No, my brother – ” His head turned. 

Nott turned in the same direction, though he had heard nothing. But Pevensie had the right of it, for it took but a moment more for Malfoy and Riddle to come into view. 

He had shared a dormitory with Riddle for seven years. At the beginning, he had not paid him much attention, a fact which had later given him cause for regret. His impressions of that time were overlaid now by those of an older Riddle, but in Nott’s mind Riddle remained always collected and though not as outwardly vain as Malfoy, smart in his appearance. 

Now Riddle’s robes were askew. It had not taken Malfoy long to return: even had he not succumbed to verbosity, Riddle must have hurried. More surprising still was the look on his face, which combined eagerness with a soft edge Nott did not recall seeing before on his face. At Hogwarts, no infatuations had ever seemed to touch him. 

For a moment, they only looked at each other. Nott had the impression that had they not been standing in his corridors but in Riddle’s lodgings, they would have already been ordered out, but of course Riddle could not do so here. 

“So you’ve come after all,” said Riddle in a quiet voice. Then he seemed to recall how they all stood, and said, his eyes still fixed on Pevensie, “Shall we?”

Pevensie’s eyes flickered over the rest of them. “Certainly,” he said, with a barely-there tilt of his head and smile that was equally slight. 

No such smile was on Riddle’s face when he spared them a glance, which was brief enough to be a clear dismissal. Their eyes tracked the two as they moved away, and as they were silent, this time they heard the footsteps reverberating on the stairs. 

Those remaining looked at each other, and by a silent agreement repaired to the same chamber where so short a time earlier Pevensie’s unexpected appearance had put an end to merriment. The chess game was not resumed, nor did Nott himself call for more wine, but they fell into a bout of speculation that soon after awoke Dolohov, to whom the whole affair had to be explained, but who in time expressed no lesser astonishment and curiosity. 

Sitting there, Nott reached out to check the protections again, just in case anything had changed. They remained undisturbed. He allowed himself the thought that perhaps Riddle had set them to allow Pevensie in, but could find no confirmation of any such additions. His eyes went up in silent contemplation to the ceiling, which gave no indication of any happenings upstairs, and the discomfort that had settled upon him with Avery’s exclamation remained with him the whole evening long.

**Author's Note:**

> Half of this fic was written back in 2014 (or at least the file was last updated in April of that year), now edited and finished. Long time!


End file.
